Fionnuala Ní Aoláin: the Gendered Dimension of High-Stakes Security Diplomacy – The Iran Deal from Another Perspective

“Women constitute less than 2% of peace process mediators deployed by the United Nations to major conflict zones, rarely assuming the key negotiator role in high-stakes inter-state negotiations.”

Negotiations relating to revising political settlements within states have long been castigated for their failure to  adequately include  women as mediators and negotiators.

In a guest blog post with Just Security, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin from the Transitional Justice Institute considers the  lack of women as conflict mediators, and notes how the inter-state Iran Nuclear negotiations bucked this trend.

One of the factors influencing the lack of women in the peacebuilding negotiating field is the legacy of governmental hiring and diplomatic deployment practices, which has traditionally excluded women from deployment in high-risk positions. Thus, the “deep diplomatic credentials  required for conflict, political settlement and reconstruction negotiations” are more difficult to attain.

However, women were key negotiators in the ongoing Iran Deal and as Ní Aoláin argues, brought something new to the table that assisted with reaching a negotiated solution.

Read the full article here!  

The article has been further picked up by Sharon Zimmerman in her article on the Huffington Post. 

Photo: Commons Wikimedia